


Dated 2104

by paperbluehyacinth (infiniteleecity)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Bestfriends Doyu!, Character Death, M/M, Mentions of War, Reincarnation, Soulmarks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:46:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27679607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infiniteleecity/pseuds/paperbluehyacinth
Summary: Yuta lived in 1943 - a war soldier that turned mechanic when he got injured in the war. He builds a typewriter - the only thing of his that lives on.Jaemin is alive in the present, 2020 - a struggling double major (history & creative writing). He is known for writing his stories on typewriters and the unusual scar on his left wrist.
Relationships: Na Jaemin/Nakamoto Yuta
Comments: 9
Kudos: 51
Collections: Challenge #3 — soulmates, My Little Wonder Fics





	Dated 2104

**Author's Note:**

> “Time is a line  
> But we are circles.”  
> ― Rick Yancey, The Final Descent
> 
> \-------------------------------  
> Warning: subtle mentions of war.

**1943** ****

Nakamoto Yuta’s house stood on the land just across the river. Mountains and trees surrounded it, obscuring it from view. It was the perfect place for someone who wanted to live away from the dangers of war — away from the prying eyes of strangers. If you didn't know what to look for, you would never find it.

Fortunately for Kim Doyoung, he knew exactly what to look for, and where to find it. As he rowed closer to the riverbank, he could already hear noises from inside the house. The metal objects clanking against each other were not music to his ears, but he had heard it so often that it became a source of comfort — at least he knew Yuta was getting himself busy despite the war raging around them.

Doyoung could see Yuta peeking out from one of the open windows as he tied his boat to the docks. 

"Is that you, Kim Doyoung?" Yuta shouted from inside the house. Doyoung rolled his eyes — he was the only one who actually visited. No one else would know how to find the older man.

"Who else would it be?" Doyoung remarked, entering the house. Yuta was nowhere in sight when he entered, but Doyoung could hear shuffling from underneath the table.

"It's better to be cautious. I've heard people have been fleeing to the mountains," Yuta answered, his voice muffled.

Doyoung sighed and took a seat at one of the empty chairs, waiting for Yuta to emerge. “Well, this place isn't some place people would just bump into. You made sure of that when you built it," Doyoung said looking at his friend as the latter showed himself. Yuta’s face and hands were covered in soot, possibly from whatever he was working on. 

Yuta shrugged, saying simply, "We've got to do what we need to survive." He wiped his hands on his apron, doing little to clean them, before walking towards Doyoung. He looked at Doyoung's arm, the metallic one he had made for his friend after Doyoung lost his arm in an explosion. 

"Is your arm acting up again?" Yuta asked. Doyoung shook his head, raising it and moving it around to show Yuta nothing was wrong. 

"I just thought to bring you food. My brother said you were busy hauling in something from the town earlier this week," Doyoung said, "I know how you are when you're working on something — you don't eat, or sleep or —." He stopped as soon as he saw what Yuta was working on.

It sat on Yuta's worktable, with all of his work equipment surrounding it. It was easy to identify that this was what Yuta was working on because the amount of rubbish surrounding it was more than anything else around the house. Doyoung had never really known Yuta to be tidy. 

"You're building a typewriter," Doyoung asked glancing at Yuta. The older man wobbled towards Doyoung — looking very excited — his metal foot creating an unusual creaking sound as it hit the floor.

"I found a few keys in the basement of a bombed house when I volunteered to gather supplies," Yuta explained. 

"What for?" 

Yuta shrugged and walked towards a seat to fix the loose bolts on his foot that was causing the creaking. "I thought why not?" he said. 

Doyoung stared at him as he removed a screw from his leg, "You should fix your foot first," Doyoung remarked.

"This is nothing. I don't go out that much anyway," Yuta said as he finished replacing the screw he had just removed. He tried standing up, testing the foot before heading back to the typewriter.

They were the spoils of war — too broken to function but fortunate enough not to be dead. Yuta had an affinity for shiny things and had started building things from those, eventually building himself his own leg, then Doyoung's hand and then the many other things that followed. Doyoung never understood Yuta's obsession, but he left him to it anyway. It was his way to keep busy. 

"Who are you going to give it to?" Doyoung asked, walking closer towards the worktable to see the typewriter up-close. 

"No one. It'll be mine," Yuta said.

"You're not even a writer," Doyoung remarked.

"Well, I could be. If I worked hard enough to learn it," Yuta said, scratching the back of his neck as if not believing himself, "or I could fall in love with a writer and give them this — as a first gift."

Yuta waved his hand around like a music conductor conducting an orchestra, dazed. Doyoung watched him — Yuta looked like he was dreaming of the day he would fall in love with a writer. In his daydream, he didn't realize a loose wire poking out of the typewriter. The next thing he knew, he was screaming in pain as the wire cut through his wrist. Doyoung quickly rushed to him to look over his wound.

"You should be careful," Doyoung said. "Your office isn't that sanitary. Who knows what's in these tools?" Doyoung remarked, placing a wet rag on Yuta's wound. The latter hissed in pain as Doyoung cleaned his wound but smiled at his friend sheepishly. 

"You're lucky I'm a military doctor," Doyoung muttered when he finished.

"Was," Yuta corrected, "you won't be able to stitch anyone any more with that arm of yours."

Doyoung examined the wound and shook his head, "It doesn't look like it needs stitching anyway — bandaging will be enough. It'll leave a scar though."

Yuta looked at his wrist with longing, "Whoever I marry would just have to accept this part of me then."

"You have a metallic leg, Yuta. If they marry you given that, I'm sure the scar will be nothing."

* * *

Doyoung came back the next day, excusing that he needed to look at Yuta's wound even if he did only want to spend some time with his friend. They were the only ones left from their squad from the war. There were just some things you experience together without ending up liking each other and Doyoung liked being around the older man.

Yuta was still working on his typewriter when Doyoung arrived the next day. The mechanic didn't acknowledge him at first, not until Doyoung accidentally bumped into a pile of books, causing a big mess, and attracting Yuta's attention. 

"Is your hand okay?" Yuta asked.

"You know I have other reasons to visit you," Doyoung remarked. 

"And what reasons would those be?" Yuta asked.

Doyoung shrugged, "Your wound?"

At the mention of his wound, Yuta looked excited. "Look at this," he said, removing the bandage from his left wrist. As Doyoung expected, it did leave a scar — a rather unique scar. 

"Do you see that, it looks like the letters NY," Doyoung smiled at Yuta's enthusiasm but decided to tease his friend. "It looks more like a J to me," he said, angling Yuta's hand to inspect the wound further. "It's Y! For Yuta. NY — Nakamoto Yuta," Doyoung shook his head, saying nothing. He walked towards Yuta’s worktable to see the new thing Yuta was working on with the typewriter. 

"Is that a date?" Doyoung asked seeing an inscription. He leaned in closer to inspect it, "Why 2020?" he asked.

"I had a dream last night — that someone will receive this typewriter in 2020 and it'll make them very happy," Yuta said, standing beside Doyoung. 

"Would it even survive that long?" Doyoung asked. 

Yuta stayed quiet for a while, wiping the dust away from some parts of the typewriter and looking at it lovingly, like it meant the whole world to him, before answering, "It should."

* * *

Despite his talks about marriage, Yuta didn't get married, or he didn't want to. In the years he had lived — he had kept his promise of trying to learn how to write. He hadn't become an established writer, but he wrote letters to a lover he had never met. The letters, along with the typewriter, stayed in Yuta's care until he died at the age of 94 in February 2020.

* * *

**2020, May**

Na Jaemin had fallen in love with writing at a young age. 

He was eight years old and walking back home from school when he suddenly had a thought — a story formed itself in his mind. He scoured book after book trying to find anything that matched the story in his mind but when he couldn't find any, he decided to make it his own.

The story was about a young mechanic, living in a small land at the bottom of the mountain just across the river. He built everything from toy trains to mechanical arms — helping the people in his city who had lost far too many. The story haunted him ever since he thought of it, to the point that when he needed to submit a proposal for his thesis twelve years later, that was the story he went with.

Unfortunately for him, his professors hadn't found the same spark he found in his story. Now, he was walking home, with his rejected manuscript in his hands, feeling disheartened.

"Jaemin," someone called. Jaemin looked up to see his roommates — Jeno, Donghyuck and Renjun — leaning against Jeno's car, waiting for him.

"Are we going somewhere?" Jaemin asked. Jeno rolled his eyes, and took Jaemin's bag from him, already throwing it inside the car. "Don't you remember? My grandfather asked for help to clean out his best friend's house," Jeno said. Jaemin sighed as he remembered agreeing to help with this task. It was unfortunate that today would be that day because he wasn't in the mood.

"What's got you so down today, Jaem?" Donghyuck asked as he climbed into the space behind Jaemin. 

"School," Jaemin answered, buckling his seatbelt as he settled on the passenger seat.

"Doesn't it always," Renjun remarked, sitting beside Donghyuck, causing the latter to laugh in agreement. Once everyone was settled in, Jeno drove away. 

* * *

The drive towards Jeno's grandfather's friend's house took almost an hour. Jaemin was scrolling on his phone when Donghyuck placed his head on the back of the seat, trying to see what Jaemin was looking at. What he saw instead was the scar on Jaemin's left wrist. "Did anyone ever tell you that your scar looks like the letters NY?" Donghyuck asked. Jaemin looked behind him to stare at his friend before pulling his jacket sleeve up to look at the scar closely.

"I like to think it looks more like NJ, you know, for Na Jaemin," he said. Renjun snorted and leaned forward to inspect Jaemin's scar as well. "Nope, it looks like a Y to me," Renjun teased which made Donghyuck laugh. Jaemin made a face at his two best friends before tugging his sleeves back down. The other two continued laughing at Jaemin before they steered the conversation away.

* * *

To say that the house looked like something out of a sci-fi film was an understatement. The outside looked modern enough but the inside was filled with metal parts, mechanical arms, and legs. It felt like the story in Jaemin's head, only this time he wasn't imagining it.

"You've got to forgive Yuta, he had a knack for building things," Jeno's grandfather, who introduced himself as Kim Doyoung, said. He led them towards the living room for a light afternoon snack before they could begin tearing the house apart and looking for something to sell. When they got to the living room, Jaemin was immediately attracted to the big photo hanging above the fireplace.

"Is this him, grandpa?" Jeno asked, standing beside Jaemin. The man in the picture stood tall — his weight was supported by a metallic leg and the cane in the right hand. His left hand was effortlessly resting on a table showing the inside of his wrist. Jaemin noticed the scar.

"You have the same scar as him, Jaem," Renjun remarked. Doyoung's eyes immediately landed on Jaemin, watching him carefully. Jaemin tugged his sleeve lower to cover his wrist. 

"I'm sure it's just a coincidence," Jaemin said, heading to the sofa to sit down, not wanting to be asked any questions.

While they were eating snacks, Doyoung watched him carefully. 

"Do you write, young man?" the old man asked him. Jaemin, who was sipping on his coffee, nodded and put the cup down. "I'm a creative writing major," he explained.

"Have you ever written on a typewriter?" At this question, Jaemin's friends snickered. "He only ever writes on typewriters, grandpa. Probably gives his professors a hard time," Jeno says. Doyoung ignored his grandson. Instead, he stood up and went to another room. Around three minutes later, he came back holding a big box and immediately handed it to Jaemin.

A beautiful typewriter sat inside the box. It definitely looked old, but there was something about it that made Jaemin's eyes twinkle. "This is the first thing Yuta had ever built and finished — well not counting my arm and his leg."

Jaemin stayed quiet, passing his fingers over the keys, getting used to the feeling of them underneath his fingertips.

Doyoung smiled, remembering the words Yuta had said to him all those years ago — that the person who will receive this in 2020 would be very happy.

"It's yours if you want it," Doyoung said. Jaemin smiled, feeling ecstatic, already thinking about all the things he could write on it.

* * *

A few hours later — when they finally cleaned the whole house — Jaemin looked at the typewriter again. He realized a letter was caught in between the paper fingers and bails. 

"Mr. Kim," he called out just as he was leaving the house, "I think this one is yours." Doyoung looked at the letter and then smiled at Jaemin. 

"That's yours. Yuta would've wanted you to have that too."

* * *

When they arrived back at the dorms, Jaemin immediately went to his room to examine the typewriter. He tried writing with it first and, satisfied that it worked, looked at it in wonder for the next hour. He studied every nook of it — watched how the colours blended into each other. Jaemin could just envision the work and the energy placed in putting all the intricate details on the typewriter. It felt like falling in love, only with an inanimate object, if that was even possible. He stopped at the carving on the top-plate of the typewriter — _May 22, 2020._

That was the date today, Jaemin thought. 

_How odd?_

After looking through the typewriter, Jaemin decided to read the letter. 

_To my dear, young writer,_

_The world might be against you today with people telling you of things about yourself you have to change. Life is often so hard to live but I've learned through all my breathing years to never conform to the standards of the world. You are special and you have the strength and the power to create great things. Don't let words of hate affect you because it'll cause you to doubt yourself._

_Love yourself. Love the creations you're making — let them breathe the air of the world, and they will inspire._

_You are special. Your thoughts are special. And your words have power. So go and write, my little writer. Show the world what you're capable of._

_Love, Nakamoto Yuta (Inventor)_

Jaemin didn't realize he was crying — words from a stranger making him feel like he was something, _someone who can change the world_. It'll felt like the universe was working alongside him — that these words were exactly what he needed. He took out a stack of paper and placed them in his new typewriter and started writing. 

About six hours later, with his manuscript faxed to his professor (he didn't care that it was already almost 2am), he leaned back and looked at his wrist. He ran his fingers towards the scar that painted the surface, and somehow, he admitted to himself, it did look like the letters _NY._

* * *

**2104**

"Do you believe in soulmates?" Yuta asked, jumping onto the bed. Jaemin looked at him, replacing his work shirt with a pyjama shirt. He fixed the typewriter he’d been working on, putting it back inside its box before lying beside Yuta. 

"That’s an odd thing to ask. Why?" 

Yuta shrugged, "I always wondered if I was destined to be with you," he said, "If the scar on our wrists are anything to go by," he added. Jaemin looked at his left wrist, angling it so the light can illuminate the scar. It was an odd scar — Yuta had always joked that it formed the letter NY for his name, Nakamoto Yuta. Jaemin teased the older man the same thing, that his scar spelled his initials, NJ. The jokes eventually became a truth to them — an assurance that they were meant for each other despite whatever the world had said. 

"Well, if soulmates aren't real, it's a very wonderful coincidence to have met you," Jaemin said, snuggling closer to Yuta. 

"If we had lives before or after this, I bet I had scoured the whole world to have found the man with the same scar as me." 

"What makes you think we lived the same lifetimes?" 

Yuta shrugged, pulling Jaemin closer towards him, "If we didn't then I'm glad the universe gave us this one to share with each other. Because I don't know where I'd be without you, Na Jaemin," 

"And I don’t know where I’d be without you too, Nakamoto Yuta," Jaemin said before eventually falling asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> I had this idea since before the polls ended and even if soulmates didn't win I would've written it anyway. Glad it won though, so I have a reason to work on this earlier and not have it die in my drafts. 
> 
> Thanks to Little Wonder who have been working so hard for this fest. Y'all are heroes.
> 
> This idea was born from my and my sister's fascination with reincarnation and the concept of time not being linear. So basically, I thought, what if your soulmate doesn't live in the same lifetime as you - or you do live in the same lifetime, but your circumstances doesn't allow you to be together (i.e. Yuta being 80+ years older than Jaemin and having died before meeting him), but since you are soulmates, there is a lifetime where you would be together. So basically get reincarnated over and over again before you find them. 
> 
> PS. I have a weird fascination with the date May 22 for some unknown reason. 
> 
> Thanks to my beta, haru! She was busy, but she was still able to look through this. My love and respect to you.


End file.
